My Lords, the first amendment in the group seeks simply to have the appointment of the chair approved by the relevant Select Committee in accordance with the coalition agreement which said:
“We will strengthen the powers of Select Committees to scrutinise major public appointments”.
That built on the wording of the Conservative manifesto to,
“give Select Committees the right to hold confirmation hearings for major public appointments, including the heads of Quangos”,
and on the Liberal Democrat manifesto which said:
“We will increase Parliamentary scrutiny of Government appointments”.
It is hard to put it any better than that. However, even if the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the coalition had not supported this, it is still a good thing.
Parliamentary oversight of the performance of the CMA is vital. Our economy depends on a vibrant, competitive market and, given the powers and remit of the CMA, it is important that Parliament checks that it is doing its job. So this amendment is part of that trend of transparency.
Amendment 24AB concerns the key appointment in all of this—the chair of the CMA. We are more than content with the “shadow” chair, if I may call the noble Lord, Lord Currie of Marylebone, who is in his place, a mere shadow. The amendment is about any successor of his in due course and the attributes that we would wish to see in any such appointment.
Competition law is not only for economists and lawyers. What economists choose to measure is not a neutral given but depends on what they judge to be important. A recent OFT review of the estate agency industry decided that we needed more of them—that is, more estate agents. Clearly the authors of the review had never walked up and down our high streets. However, that is what they thought rather than that we needed better regulated, more truthful and cheaper estate agents. There was something lacking in an over-economically driven approach which ignored the experience of home buyers. We would therefore look for someone who understood how markets really worked for consumers and had experience of retail or wholesale markets and, even more, who understood the particular needs of vulnerable consumers and how failing markets hit them particularly hard.
6.15 pm
Finally, Amendment 24BB in this group addresses two internal issues relating to the operational structure of the CMA. First, the top officeholder should earn not more than 20 times the salary of the lowest-paid
officeholder, which would ensure a culture of inclusivity and aid transparency by making these ratios public. It is hard to imagine that such a ratio is not in itself fair and we should therefore embed this provision in the Act. The second provision in this amendment would ensure that the CMA avoids indirect payments for tax avoidance purposes. After all the publicity, that is pretty much bound not to happen, and we may as well write it into the Bill. I beg to move.